There is definitely a progression system in NMS. I remember different progression trees for your base, your character, your ship etc. The problem is that the impact of the progression is pretty low. This is a sandbox without meaningful consequences, which leads to the fact that after a couple of hours you already got to a point where anything else you achieve is just for the heck of it. You already got everything meaningful up and running at this point.

NMS definitely has a progression system. It just might not appeal to everyone, especially people who don't care for crafting games.

"Lack of progression system" is not accurate, because the game offers many different ways to progress the abilities of your character, your spaceships, your base, and the whole space empire you can build has now been bigly expanded. Also the Expeditions are large quests that give large rewards.

Yeah, I can definitely see more creative-minded people having a blast with this game. I‘m just not that type of person. The X series is more to my liking, I just wish they had the same freedom in terms of space travel as NMS. Or if NMS was more like X or Mount and Blade in space.

I never understood the base building if one main mechanic is moving on and on and on to explore. I may never have progressed far enough, but the base building is introduced very early and I never understood why I would waste resources on a base I'll just leave behind.